musical musings from the frozen north:
torontopia, mont royal city and kawartha kottages

Monday, December 01, 2014

Mary J. Blige - The London Sessions

Mary J. Blige - The London Sessions (Universal)

What do the Brits know about soul music that Americans don’t?
Probably nothing, really; geographical flukes of genre happen all the time, and
the Brits have embraced and emulated African American music for almost a
century. Mary J. Blige—the queen of hip-hop soul, the woman who has sold more
than 50 million records, a woman who can do anything she wants—set up shop in
London earlier this year and started co-writing with Sam Smith, Disclosure,
Emeli Sandé and others. Why? To chase Adele and Amy Winehouse? For a fresh
start? Just to see what would happen after she sang on a Disclosure remix? No
matter. The result is five kinds of fabulous.

Blige has always traded on her empathy and personal struggles
(previous albums: Share My World, No More Drama, Stronger With Each Tear), her
songs sometimes sounding like an Oprah pep talk set to music (sample lyric
here: “There’s only so much I can do if you’re not loving you”). Here, however,
she sounds all the more strong atop either sparse, simple, vintage soul
arrangements or modern disco and house. In the tradition of great house divas
of the ’90s, her voice is largely unadorned, showcasing all her gospel glory,
the power and range that can be buried in larger productions. Needless to say,
on the stripped-down tracks, like the doo-woppish Sam Smith co-write “Therapy,”
or the bare-bones piano ballad “Worth My Time,” she absolutely soars.

The sound of The London Sessions is thrilling on its own, but
the songs are also some of Blige’s strongest. Most devastating is “Whole Damn
Year,” a heart-wrenching depiction of a woman coming through either abuse or
depression or both—or worse: “It took a whole damn year to repair my body …
it’ll take a long, long year for me to trust somebody … it’s been a bad five
years.” In Blige’s hands, of course, it’s a declaration of purpose and
strength. She doesn’t expect you to understand her pain; she doesn’t even want
to give you the details: just know it’s there and accept it. And if you’re in
the same situation, Blige’s voice is the one you want and need to hear. It
helps, too, that two songs later Blige is singing atop major keys and a house
beat with a looped clarinet and singing about how “soon the sun gon’ be shining
on me.”